First off, I’ll just preface by saying that this post may come off more as the ramblings of a mad man… and I totally accept that because honestly it’s how I feel… The last week or so has been the absolute toughest one yet. As you know, if you follow on Twitter or listen to the podcasts my mom dropped off her dog for a week while my stepdad, her and her parents (for those doing the math, my other set of grandparents and not the one’s I normally do Sunday dinners with) trekked off to Cuba for a week.

I agreed to watch her for the week considering I had nothing else planned that week… I’ve house sit cats before, longest stint being two weeks and had absolutely no troubles at all. But this dog… well in a word “nightmare” seems fitting. And it’s horrible to say because the poor dog doesn’t know she’s driving me mental… and I can’t communicate to her exactly how she’s making life a living hell. But she is…

I suspect that if I wasn’t in the midst of a very different life, I might have been able to ride it out better… but alas my life is not normal. I sleep on the floor – which means she can come up and breathe her disgusting breath into my face while she barks about needing to go outside every 2 hours (that includes overnight since she’s been here.) When I go to the washroom, she seems to always go take a big drink of water followed by a walk to my sleeping bag at which point she spits out the water all over it – leaving my only true comfort wet and stinking of her breath. (Every time I leave the room I have to now put my stuff up into the closet). In her defence, the first day I was okay with her being on the bag as you can see above… but I’ve discouraged her every single time since then with a firm ‘no’.

Her food I don’t just pour into a dish – boiled carrots, celery and sweet potato mixed into yogurt, oatmeal, cottage cheese and apple sauce in theory doesn’t seem so bad – but then she takes a big drink of water afterwards and proceeds to head over to my sleeping bag and drip murky cottage cheesey-yogurt water all over it. Blahhhhhh! But definitely the bi-hourly wake up barks are the worst… and when I close my door, she barks more and cries too. I get that she’s in unfamiliar surroundings, misses my mom… I get it… but god damn!

Then I’m in the midst of dealing with a horribly painful cuticle infection (which makes typing a real pain… literally) that I’m now treating with some topical antibiotics, fabric bandages and some vinegar to to help draw out the infection and open the pores. $16.66 worth of supplies, (oh and I’m washing my sleeping bag today because I can’t sleep with the smell any more. So another $2.50.) Which takes us down to $62.15 left of emergency money this month. Also, as you may have noticed – content has been weak on the site this week… again we can attribute that to the dog because every time I try to write something, interrupted, or I’m exhausted and can’t think of words, or have to go for a walk, or make it food, or clean it’s face of water… or blahhhh! It’s just the worst and I can’t wait for it to go home.

This has honestly been the toughest week yet, and I’m on the total verge of mental collapse. In fact, last night I sent an email to my mom at 3:30AM asking what to do (in tears, that’s how bad this has gotten) because I’m at the end of the rope… I need her input in what to do because I don’t know what to do. The dog has just been the final push though… the truth is, short of calories and quality foods, along with being short of comforts… A Sponsored Life is NOT easy. However, at the end of the day I’m entirely exhausted which means I get a nice long 8-9 hour sleep and I feel okay to take on the next day. But without that sleep days feel impossible… and stacking them on top of each other and it feels like torture.

If content on site remains rather limited to the daily podcast and maybe a post every other day until Wednesday when the dog will be gone by – I hope you guys will forgive me. I will try to do more though! (There’s a few things here I haven’t written about that arrived on Friday).

Anyway, just wanted to write this because honestly it feels like therapy – desperately needed written therapy. Thanks everyone for your ongoing support! Once I make it through this… I imagine the rest of the year will be a breeze!